POV: An Olympic Generation Comes to An End

It’s 11:00 a.m. of July 28, 2024.

You are on the couch holding the TV remote control.

The screen frames the Paris La Defense Arena: the Paris 2024 Olympic Games have begun.

It’s already the second day of competition, and on the starting blocks the participants of the men’s 400 medley are ready to go.

First heat, nothing. You wait. 

Second heat, still nothing. Third, fourth.

And you wait some more, until the heats are over and you start realizing that you won’t see that bald Hungarian head swim the world’s most exhausting 8 laps again.

Laszlo Cseh won’t swim in Paris, or in any other Olympics.

And the same thing happens a bit later, with those women’s 100 breaststroke, always full of drama: Yuliya Efimova will not contribute in any way this time.

On the same morning you will be there suffering more than you have so far, because she is missing, the Diva, the Divine. You already know that the she hung up the goggles, yet it’s a different feeling to see it in front of your eyes: in the heats of the 200 freestyle, for the first time in 20 years, you won’t read Federica Pellegrini‘s name.

For that day it’s enough.

However, in the following days you will have to deal with the absence of other legends, who by now you thought were intrinsic to the Games themselves, such as Katinka Hosszu, Cate Campbell or Mireia Belmonte Garcia.

THE IRON LADY KATINKA HOSSZU 

“Racing is a chance to train with some of the best athletes in the world. It’s all about the racing and performing”

And Katinka Hosszu raced indeed./And she surely did race.

Five Olympics. And she tried the Iron Lady to trip her Olympic participation counter to six, but unfortunately she missed the mark, reaching seasonal personal bests in the 200 medley and 400 medley, which are 3 and 4 seconds away from the Olympic limit, respectively.

However, let’s jump back in time. We are in Rio in 2016. 31st edition of the Olympics.

By the third day of competition, Katinka already has the gold medal for the 400 medley around her neck, along with a ( at the time) world record. A record that stood for 7 years, until (perhaps) a new Iron Lady arrived: Summer McIntosh. 

So we are now at the third day. Through the morning Hosszu easily qualified in the 200 medley. 

Evening comes, precisely 9:30 p.m.: women’s 100 backstroke finals.

Take your marks, go. 58.45 and second gold for the Hungarian.

It’s enough, it’s all, someone would say, as any person with common sense, but who does not know the Iron Lady. 

It’s not. After only an hour in fact, at 10:36 p.m. Katinka Hosszu is back on the blocks, this time for the semifinal of the 200 medley. Needless to say, the pass to the final is in her pockets, and the next day, despite having to give up the 200 butterfly (because it’s okay to play for everything at the Worlds, but at the Olympics you have to win), her third gold, in the 200 medley, arrives, with an Olympic record included.

To make sure she doesn’t miss anything, our Iron Lady also wins, as the cherry on top of the laurel cake, a silver in the 200 backstroke, only behind Maya Di Rado, who takes her away the poker of golds by only 6 cents.

How much will we miss seeing Katinka Hosszu from 1 to 3 Olympic golds and 1 silver in a single edition?

THE DIVINE FEDERICA PELLEGRINI

“I was born competitive. It’s not that I really want to win, it’s that I don’t want to lose, because I don’t like it at all.”

Perhaps her adventures at the games have not always been satisfying, almost cursed after the silver medal in Athens and the gold in Beijing, but Italy’s flag-bearer in Rio 2016 has always gotten back up, and with pride she has shown everyone that no, she is not up for losing.

And if she loses, she does it by breaking some records anyway. Seventh place in the 200 style of Australia’s new stars at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, yet the last Olympic gem Federica left us with is still a record.

The only swimmer along with Michael Phelps to have taken part in 5 Olympic finals in the same event: for Michael Phelps it was the 200 butterfly, for her it was the 200 freestyle.

Now please tell me, where do we get the guts to watch that 200 freestyle in Paris? For sure, it will probably be one of the most exciting races of the Games, but she will not be there. For 20 years, swimmers who aspired to a place in the finals in this race had to assume that there would be seven blocks available, not eight. For 20 years, for five editions of Five Circles, one of the starting blocks in the 200 freestyle final has always been designated for the divine, Federica Pellegrini.

So this year,the freestylers will have a gift, that spot will be free, and we will have to buck up and wipe away the tears: this is the first Olympics without one of the greatest Italian athletes of all time.

THE ETERNAL RUNNER UP LASZLO CSEH

“Maybe if there was no Phelps and Lochte, I wouldn’t been so strong. They pushed me to be faster.”

It may be that Lazslo Cseh represented the last remaining piece of that historic rivalry triumvirate formed by the other two U.S. phenomena Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte; or it may be that, although he can’t define himself apart from the other two either, he was one of the strongest athletes of this generation, yet not seeing his cap… or rather his head at the starting blocks will be a pretty big trauma.

6 Olympic medals, always by their side, attending almost every final of the 200 butterfly,200 medley and 400 medley from 2004 to 2020. Five Olympics.

Sure, we’ve already been through Games without the other two swimmers, and maybe it’s true that Lazslo without Phelps and without Lochte was no longer Laszlo, but as with Federica Pellegrini, not hearing the speaker say his name anymore will have a completely different effect.

And Dad, I’m sorry, I will no longer be able to pretend to laugh when watching the men’s 200 medley final you exclaimed, “Oh, menomale che Lazslo c’è.” (Italian for “Thanks god Lazslo is here”, a dad joke about the assonance between Cseh and “c’è”=is here)

DOLPHIN #665 CATE CAMPBELL

“My job isn’t to create history; it’s to go out there and perform at my best.”

 The most decorated athlete in this article, as well as the second most decorated athlete in Australia. 4 Olympic golds, 1 silver and 3 bronze medals. Able to win her last Olympic medal 13 years after her first. There are whole generations of kids who grew up along with Cate Campbell‘s wins.

Just think, you’re 10 years old, and it’s Summer. That summer that will mark the beginning of your teenage years, your last real summer as a child. It also happens to be the Summer of the Olympic Games. The games of records, the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 

Most of your fellow swimmers are too focused on the 8 gold medals won by the Baltimore shark (and how can you blame them), but not you, you notice someone on the podium, alongside Britta Stephen and Dara Torres. The U.S. woman is more than twice her age, 41 years old versus 16 years old, a passing of the baton in short. A sign of the stars, as that 16-year-old is set to become along with Dara Torres the most medaled swimmer in relays at the Olympics.

Cate Campbell is only six years older than you, and you already see her as an inspiration.

She will also be bronze in the 4×100 freestyle relay.

Jumping forward in time, you are now 14 years old, and you just finished your freshman year of high school. Cate is 20 years old and wins the first Olympic gold medal in her career: she swims the second leg of the 4×100 freestyle relay.

Rio 2016, the Summer of your 18th birthday. You just got your driver’s license and your friends would like to go to the beach, but you can’t because the Dolphin #665 is on the starting blocks. 

Cate also takes part in the 4×100 mixed relay, which wins silver and is again gold in the 4×100 freestyle. That’s five Olympic medals at age 24.

Then comes Tokyo, it’s July 25, 2021, you’re 23, you’ve finished your thesis in time only to be able to enjoy the Australian’s fourth Olympics. And she does not disappoint. These is the most successful Games of her career: 2 golds in the 4×100 free and 4×100 medley relays, which she wins as a star, catching up with her 52.11 split the 25 cents that separated the Aussies from the Americans. A world record and an Olympic record. By now this is routine.

That’s why perhaps, now that you’re 27 years old and Cate Cambell is 33, your heart clenches to know that she will not participate in her fifth Olympics. She, who literally accompanied you from elementary school to your first job, will not be there to entertain you with her magical splits on those torrid Parisian August days. 

In addition to that, Campbell, a victim of Australia’s fierce trials, has announced her retirement. For years we have been her cheerleaders, but as she said it is now her turn to enter the “cheerleading era.”

MISS MIREIA BELMONTE AND THE CONTROVERSIAL YULIYA EFIMOVA

 Two more female athletes with 13-year Olympic careers. The name Mireia Belmonte Garcia has never left my mind. Maybe because of her long, calophonic name, maybe because I discovered her with her first successes in the 200 butterfly, a race I had just learned to love. The best swimmer that Spain has ever had failed to qualify for her fifth Olympics, missing the OQT in the 400 and 200 freestyle. 

An athlete who managed to participate in her Olympic adventure in the 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, 200 and 400 IM, and 400, 800 and 1500 freestyle. But Belmonte has not only participated, she has also won, reaching the top of the Mount Olympus in the 2012 Olympics, with two silvers in the 200 butterfly and 800 freestyle, and also a gold in the 200 butterfly accompanied by a bronze in the 400 IM at the 2016 Rio Olympics. 

The most versatile athlete we have witnessed so far, who we will never see again between the lanes of a five-circle pool.

Unforgettable as much as controversial, on the other hand, is the nostalgia we will get from Yuliya Efimova when she will not show up at the starting blocks in Paris 2024. 

Between stories of doping and dissing with Lilly King in fact there is above all an incredible sporting legacy left to us by the Russian swimmer.

Almost redeeming herself from past mistakes in fact, Yuliya Efimova was the only Russian swimmer to apply for neutral status in order to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympics. After two silvers and an Olympic bronze, however, the former world record holder in the 50 breaststroke failed to qualify for her fifth Olympics. 

She, too, joins the list of swimmers who will have to pay us moral damages. The only solace is that in the international breaststroke we will get to see her Estonian almost- homonymous, 16-year-old Eneli Jefimova.

WHEN A DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS.

When an era ends (and what an era it was), another begins. Without forgetting to rock ourselves again with the memories of medals and races of these legends, whose nostalgia permeates us, and to get ourselves a big box of tissues as July 27 dawns, let’s take a look at the present. The world is full of kids who unfortunately did not get to see with their own eyes the feats of Campbell, Pellegrini, Cseh, Hosszu,Mireia and Efimova. Exactly the same way I was unable to admire athletes like Matt Biondi, Domenico Fioravanti or Ian Thorpe. However, this does not mean that I have missed out on enjoying as many legends, who have managed to entertain us and surpass even more limits than the idols of the past did.

Looking at the present, and the future then, the prospect is surprisingly exciting, and I have no doubt that in a few years I will have to get back to the computer to write, between tears, about other farewells to the Olympic world by legends, who ,perhaps, have yet to be born.